Garrett Hongo, who teaches poetry at the University of Oregon, finds himself in a quest for the perfect audio system. Part of Hongo’s story goes back to his father who in the 1950s and 1960s built audio equipment from Heathkit, Allied Knight, Lafayette, and Eico. The tragedy was Hongo’s father was rapidly losing his hearing. The audio equipment he built provided the last sounds of music he would ever experience.
After his father died, Hongo pursued his teaching career, but felt unfulfilled. Hongo loved music and when his CD changer broke, he decided to buy something better. But the better CD player needed a more powerful amplifier. Then the system needed better speakers. And before long, Hongo had gone down the stereo Rabbit Hole to find the perfect sound system.
As the reader follows Hongo on his quest, the history of modern audio becomes part of the story. The history of the vinyl record, the invention of the amplifier–with those glowing tubes!–and why speakers work they way they do. Plenty of detail and data across the decades!
As a bonus, Hongo goes into the music that he loves…and why. You’ll come away with a list of pop, jazz, and classical music you’ll be searching for. If you’re interested in music sound systems, The Perfect Sound will give you plenty of tips on the type of equipment you should be considering. If you’re just interested in obsession, Hongo’s search for the perfect sound system shows that starkly! What kind of stereo system do you listen to? GRADE: A
Table of Contents
Preludio — 1
Part One
The Perfect Sound — 11
Part Two
I Started Out on Stereo — 55
Part Three
Tubeworld, 1 — 127
Part Four
Tubeworld, 2 — 163
Part Five
It’s My Life — 209
Part Six
Wandering Rocks, 1 — 255
Part Seven
The First Amplifiers — 283
Part Eight
Talking Heads and Singing Platters — 345
Part Nine
Wandering Rocks, 2 — 401
Part Ten
Among the Bohemians — 433
Outro — 495
Acknowledgments — 519
Notes on Sources — 521
I’m not much of an audiophile. I throw on a pair of wireless headphones and listen to one of my Spotify playlists. We still have a small portable CD player for listening to our vast CD collection. I’ve never had a sound system and, at this late date, I doubt I ever will. But the book sounds interesting though—for the history of audio alone.
Deb, I learned a lot about the evolution of stereo sound systems by reading THE PERFECT SOUND. My hearing is not as acute as the “perfect sound” fanatics so I’m satisfied with several CD players in various rooms of my home with various quality of speakers. I do listen to music every day somewhere in this house. And, since Diane and Patrick and Katie have no interest in my CD collection, I’m in talks with the State University of New York at Buffalo–the same people who took my 30,000 books–to donate my thousands of music CDs to their Music Library…when I’m gone.
I came to the conclusion early on in my vinyl buying days (when I realized that the diamond on your turntable’s stylus was scrapping a little vinyl off your albums every time you played them) that the pursuit of high fidelity was an endless, expensive and ultimately joyless quest. I’ve always been very content with my modest sound equipment.
I met way too many hi-fi geeks during my record store days and they were always a creepy, obsessive bunch with the WORST taste in music. Give me a good album collection over a good stereo any day.
Byron, “Give me a good album collection over a good stereo any day” are words to live by! Like you, I was never a fan of vinyl (other than the cool album covers!). My hearing is not as acute as audiophile friends, but too many times when I played my vinyl records in the 1960s and 1970s I could hear “rumble and hiss.” Annoying! So when CDs appeared, I dumped my vinyl collection on a local record store and replaced my favorite albums with CDs. But, not CDs are becoming “obsolete” with streaming services ruling the audio world right now.
I have become a fan of documentaries about things like this on Kanopy (through my library) Having things like sound in movies explained makes me listen. This might too.
Patti, I’m a big fan of documentaries. I’ve seen a couple on sound effects in movies. Fascinating stuff!
add explained after “movies”
Nope, not interested in audio systems or the history of vinyl, etc. I see this interesting G> Kelley and A. Scott more than anyone else.
We have a Bose.
Jeff, I’m hoping Art Scott weighs in on this book and being an audiophile. I have BOSE speakers on my iMac.
Sounds intriguing, and he sounds like several people I know, myself included. I got a non-kiddie record player/changer sometime in junior high, and soon modified it by wiring in a headphone jack so I could get better sound on Kloss headphones and meantime not annoy my parents with Thelonious Monk and the like. In college I acquired a small amp & better changer for my growing record collection – exclusively jazz – but still mostly listened by phones so as not to annoy my roommates. At grad school, I started building kits, a Heathkit tuner and later receiver, and started looking for decent speakers, KLH & then Dynaco. That was more or less the status quo until 1970ish, I was working my first real job, had my own apartment, and started upgrading. Which I’ve been doing ever since in search of better sound, all the while accumulating LPs & CDs, now numbering roughly 7500. I think I’m at the end of the equipment buying trail, though, unless a key component fails. Since I have 2.5 systems (one lacks LP capability) in the house, I have backups. The most consequential result of my audiophilia was that it brought me to classical music. Quality recordings of everything from solo piano & guitar to massive choral symphonies provide the most strenuous and telling tests of audio reproduction. A helpful salesman named Olin Bealle, who became a friend, was a classical buff & he introduced me to the repertoire and composers and genres that I soon developed a taste for. From there I started going to classical concerts (I was meantime already hearing live jazz in clubs and concert halls) and the rest is history. 781 live classical concerts to date, and many more I hope to come.
Art, I only have about 3000 music CDs and I’m in negotiation with the Music Library at the State University of New York at Buffalo about a donation of the entire collection (Diane, Patrick, and Katie have ZERO interest in music CDs) upon my demise. I got into classical music while at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My roommate was a Arts Management major (who went on to become the manager of the Madison Symphony Orchestra). He had hundreds of classical music albums (now around 5000) and I heard many of them…and liked what I heard.
Later, when I was dating Diane, both of us were surprised by the number of the same albums both of us owned. Diane’s musical tastes and mine coincide in some areas mostly popular music. And, as you know, the sound system I own and listen to now was put together by the Emperor of the Universe himself! Well done!
I’ve always been interested in electronics but soon realized that the really good amplifiers were just too expensive for me.
With Vinyl records in the 1960s and record players there was the problem of slowly destroying the records – and not being able to play them everywhere.
So while still at school in 1960 I used the money from my summer job to buy a tape recorder and then in 1962 a battery operated tape recorder to use in the little Fiat 500 I bought.
And I played all my records and my friends’ records just once and recorded them on tape and later on compact cassettes.
A bit OT: I didn’t understand why the USA had these 8 track cassettes but then I realised:
You couldn’t use them to record yourself!
I also experimented with electronics and built a little transmitter, coupled it to my tape recorder and used it while working in my parents’ garden eith a transistor radio and earphones – no hifi of course but better than the crap German radio was transmitting.
Only in the 70s when I was making good money working in IT did I buy a high quality and high performance stereo system.
Wolf, I used to have a small music cassette collection but inevitably, the tape would break or get seriously tangled. Never had an 8-track tape or player. Too bulky! I was never a tape guy!
Well, you Could record yourself on an 8-track…but the equipment was expensive enough to make it mostly a radio-stations-on-up sort of thing, where i and other DJs recorded carts for announcements (I never worked at a station with true ads).
Todd, although I had problems with cassette tapes, I’ve had very few problems with music CDs. Once in a while I get one from Amazon with a scratch–but they replace it.
I’m still waiting, more than a little impatiently, for the laser stylus to be made reasonably priced, as well they should be, to play vinyl…the resurgence in interest in vinyl made me somewhat hopeful. But, hopes dashed. As it is, I still hate pops and cracks and surface noise. And the friabilty of both vinyl and Every other damned medium for music delivery. But we only have the world we have.
I’ve had or lived with an open-reel tape set, various turntable/cassette combos, various sorts of cd players, and mp3 players…listen to music in the car on the radio as well at times, and listen to way too much of my music via online sources, from Sonos to YouTube and its rivals. And some of the music on chat shows and the like, though the music documentaries.
But, otherwise, I stick with my shellac Victory discs and wire recordings and Edison cylinders, but only the ones I can get in quadrophonic. (I do have a scrap of quad vinyl.)
Todd, music CDs are good enough for me. My kids are into streaming but I like liner notes and the whole jewel box thing–hate the paper package for CDs.
Well, the jewel boxes sure break easily…but the cardboard sleeves are often worse.
Todd, the cardboard sleeves wear out after only a few uses for me. I know they’re supposed to be more environmentally friendly, but they just don’t hold up.